


Dream Me the World

by alekszova



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Soft Gavin Reed, ah.. that's it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-11 23:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16862281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: Androids don't dream. Gavin creates some fake ones for Connor.





	Dream Me the World

**Author's Note:**

> "While I'm gone, dream me the world. Something new for every night."  
> The Dream Thieves - Maggie Stiefvater

November 14th | 10:44 P.M.

“Do you sleep?” Gavin asks, for the tenth time since they’ve been together.

He is always curious, he is always trying to see if Connor really does. Sometimes he wakes up and Connor’s eyes will be closed and his LED will be moving in a lazy circle of a soft yellow, not quite the vibrancy it usually is, and he thinks that Connor _must_ be sleeping. But still. It’s not quite what a human looks like, and for some reason the small part of his brain that still struggles to comprehend the complexity of an android can’t quite believe that it’s true.

“As much as your laptop does when you close it.”

_Hm._

“Do you _dream?”_ he asks.

Connor stills, his hands stopping in their movement of unbuttoning his shirt. He turns slowly towards Gavin, a small, sad attempt at a smile on his lips, “No. Not really.”

“Not really?”

He sighs and finishes taking his shirt off, replacing it with a t-shirt that Gavin has had for five years and barely worn, but one that fits Connor perfectly, one that suits him better. Soft blues and grays always look better against the paleness of Connor’s skin than the warmness of Gavin’s.

“They’re memories. Sometimes.”

“Good or bad?” he asks, but he knows that it’s a stupid question. He’s seen other people talk about how much they wish they could have the memory of an android. To never forget a single thing, to even be able to set reminders within their own heads instead of on their phones. Not a single worry in the world about missing a date or a loved one’s birthday.

But Gavin works at the DPD, and there are plenty of things he wants to forget. He has never been jealous of Connor’s memory. He has only ever felt sorry for him. How terrible it must be to have access to the complete worst things he’s ever done. How awful it must be to remember every single detail, never once able to filter out something and push it aside.

“Both,” Connor says finally, “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Gavin replies. “I didn’t—”

“It’s okay, Gavin.”

He nods, but he still feels guilty. He had regretted the question since he spoke it. _Good or bad?_ Of course it’s both.

“Come here,” Gavin says, moving to make room for Connor on the bed.

Connor’s smile turns real and he moves across the room towards Gavin, lays down on the bed beside him and curls up close against Gavin’s chest.

It’s not often that they sleep like this. Gavin fits better in Connor’s arms than the other way around, but it doesn’t make this uncomfortable. It is always nice when they are pressed together like this, when Connor brings up a hand and rests it against his chest, maybe feeling for the heartbeat that he could probably detect if he just opened his eyes.

It must be the same for him as it is for Gavin. To feel the hum of a the Thirium regulator, to listen to the soft sound of it, so much like a heart and yet so completely different, too. Connor has a way of being like that. Existing as two separate entities in the same body. One version of him able to chase down and fight—the other soft and sweet and almost naïve in some manners.

“Sweet dreams,” Connor says quietly.

_Sweet dreams._

 

 

November 18th | 11:12 P.M.

“I want to try something,” Gavin says, sitting down on the edge of the bed to pull his shoes off and toss them to other side of the room. “If it’s okay with you.”

Connor raises an eyebrow at him, can’t help but bring up a little bit of a smile as Gavin sheds his shirt, “Depends.”

Gavin looks back to him, smiling as he balls up his shirt and throws it towards where Connor sits, “Get your mind out of the gutter, Con. It’s supposed to be nonsexual, but I won’t say no—”

“Okay,” he says quickly, handing the shirt back to Gavin. “I’ll try, but tell me what it is first.”

“I’m going to make you a dream.”

“What?”

Gavin sighs, finishes changing out his clothes and into his pajamas. He shuts off the light, laying down beside Connor, reaching forward to lace their fingers together, “Close your eyes.”

He does.

“When I was a kid and they asked us to use our imaginations, they would always have us close our eyes and picture something else, you know? I know you might not be able to dream, Connor, but you can try.”

“Okay.”

 

Connor is at the beach. Or, something similar to one. It is not quite what a beach should look like. It has sand, but the sand is a deep blue. It has shells and rocks, but they are vibrant neons that shine against the light. There is water, but it shifts green like an emerald held up to the light. There is a sky above him, but it’s night time and the moon is a broken crescent, shattered pieces floating around it like makeshift stars—

The stars, which do not exist in the sky. They exist in the air around him. Little sparkling things not at all the stars should be. Like tiny butterflies, floating slowly and lazily and leaving little trails of glitter that fall to the ground.

(“I’m alone?”

“No.”)

Behind him, there is a forest, but the trees are not quite trees. The leaves are feathers in shades of bright orange all the way to soft pinks. It is a sea of coral behind him, stretching out further and further.

And there is a man beside him, standing a few feet away.

(“Who is he?”

“Wait and find out.”

“Gavin—”

“People don’t talk when they’re dreaming, you know that, right?”)

The man reaches out to him, and Connor takes his hand. He doesn’t realize until then that his skin has been graced with the glitter of the butterfly-stars. He shimmers in the pale light of the moon like he is one of them, glows brighter than the rest.

(“Does the other man glow?”

“No... no, Connor. He doesn’t.”)

Connor lifts up off the ground, floating with the other stars, pulling the man up with him. They are swept up in a flurry of bright feathers, fusing against Connor’s back, turning brilliant white, soft hues of brown speckled across them. A star, with wings. An angel with a galaxy inside of him.

(“Gavin?”

“What?”

“Is the man you?”

“I—I—”

“This is my dream, right?”

“Yes.”

“And if the man is you…”

“What?”

“I want to kiss him. I want to give him some magic. Does the dream allow that?”

“There are no rules in dreams, Connor.”)

So, Connor kisses the man. _Gavin._ He kisses him and he lets the magic inside of him pass across his lips and his hands and his skin and leave traces of shinning shimmers against Gavin’s.

They’re not the same blinding white-silver on his own. They are gold, gleaming bright but not as bright as Connor’s. _Never_ as bright as Connor’s, but they do glow. _He_ glows. Bathed in yellows and oranges. The feathers on the trees behind them drift over, folding against his skin until they form into their own pair of wings. White, but not entirely. There is black along the edges of his wings, dark and deep, blending into the empty black of the sky.

And they fly together. Over the sea of orange and pink trees, over the green of the ocean, the blue of the sand with it’s neon rocks and neon shells. Higher and higher and higher until the land below them is nothing but a blur of color and above them the black closes in.

Gavin describes this with as much detail as he can, circling back again and again as much as he can manage until he feels Connor’s breathing change, until his heart beats a little slower, until the LED on his temple dims the slightest bit, circles yellow, yellow, yellow.

 

 

November 30th | 2:26 A.M.

“You’re still awake.”

Gavin looks up towards him, finds that he feels grateful that Connor is an android and can see more in the dark than he can. It saves him from being blinded on nights like these when Connor works late at the station.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

And it’s the truth. He can never seem to fall asleep very easily, especially when Connor is gone. His head never shuts up. There are too many thoughts racing through his mind at full speed, never stopping, never lingering. He can jump from one thing to the next, never letting his brain settle on it until it’s too tired to keep going.

Connor calms them. Not entirely. Not as much as a sleeping pill might. But he does settle them down. He thinks he does the same in return, but he’s been too scared to ask. Or maybe not scared—just nervous. Nervous that Connor would say no, that it’s not even difficult at all for an android to sleep. And why should it be? With a computer, it’s the press of a button. Shouldn’t it be similar?

“Come here,” he says, pulling the blanket back. “Let me give you another dream.”

“Gavin, it’s late. You should be resting.”

“This will help.”

And it does. It always does. Spitting out words, forming fake worlds, coming up with some strange scenarios where he doesn’t have to think of rules or what works and what doesn’t. Nothing matters in a dream. There is no moral to the story. There is nothing to be frightened of. They can be whatever they want. Connor can be an angel. Gavin can, too. They can fly for hours and hours in a starless sky because _they_ are the stars that people look up to at night.

“Okay,” Connor says. “Give me a few minutes, alright? I need to change.”

 

He is in a field of flowers. Every single one that exists scattered at his feet. The petals on them flutter away, forming into strange creatures that fly through the area like winged bugs. Connor watches them go, drifting upwards, spiraling in circles like strange creatures. There is a ceiling above him—but not a real ceiling. It is a mirror image of what’s in front of him. Another field of flowers and it carries down from the fake ceiling to the walls around him. It seemingly presses in on him like a closed room but is as open as if there was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds instead.

(“I’m alone?”

“No.”)

There is a man beside him, but he is Gavin. Through and through. There is no sense in trying to pretend it isn’t. Connor reaches out immediately and takes his hand, the action whispered across the dark space in the bedroom to make sure it happens, to make sure Gavin includes this in his little dream for him.

The flowers at his feet—the ones who petals have fled to fly around them—bloom again quickly. Gavin bends down, picks up one. Connor’s favorite.

(“I don’t have a favorite.”

“No? Okay.”)

Gavin bends down, picks up one. A forget-me-not. One single flower, but it changes in Gavin’s palm. It grows, multiplying again and again, green leaves and stems braiding together until it makes a delicate crown. He places it on Connor’s head, soft shades of blue against the dark of his hair, the pale of his skin.

A flower king.

(“And you?”

“What about me?”

“Don’t you get one too?”)

Connor stretches up, towards the field of flowers above him, taking one from the false-sky above them. Gavin’s favorite. A red yarrow. It’s not the same with Connor as it was with Gavin. It doesn’t duplicate in the same manner, it doesn’t weave a crown from thin air. Instead, it floats above his open palms and the petals shed slowly, floating down but not quite touching his skin where they replicate themselves again and again until they intersect and twine together.

He places the crown on Gavin’s head, careful not to ruin the petals, but this is a dream and nothing he could do would destroy this.

(“I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too.”)

Gavin does his best to keep the dream going. He tries his hardest to describe flowers and magical things happening with them, with the two of them wandering through the endless field until he is certain Connor is asleep, and then he trails off slowly, and the never-ending thoughts in his head seem to slow down themselves until he, too, can sleep.

 

 

December 2nd | 11:59 P.M.

“Are you alright?”

Connor smiles, shrugs, shakes his head, “I’m fine.”

“Connor…”

“Can we talk about it tomorrow?” he asks, and he tosses his jacket across the back of the chair at Gavin’s desk, the one he never, ever uses. It sits piled high with books and papers and even a cup of coffee from two days ago, while his laptop sits haphazardly on the edge of the end table in the living room.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he says.

He changes his clothes in the quiet, in the dark of the room. He finds that he needs the comfort of Gavin, and even though he is in the room, he opts for a sweater instead of a t-shirt, for the loose sweatpants that always slip past Gavin’s hips a little too easily—not that Connor has ever complained about that.

He moves back to the bed, snuggling in under the blanket that Gavin lifts up for him, presses his face against his shoulder. He didn’t realize how cold he was until he was here, in Gavin’s arms. It isn’t that he is necessarily aware of the sensation of cold or warm, but he is aware of the temperature change, and he’s aware of the way his inside alight with joy when he’s this close to him.

“Can you dream me something, Gavin?”

He feels Gavin press a kiss against his forehead, “Of course.”

 

Everything, _everything_ is gold. The floor, the stairs, the walls, the ceiling. There is a chandelier hanging above him and even the crystals are tinted a yellow-orange. The pattern in the wallpaper is all varying shades of gold, an expanding filigree. The paintings on the wall all utilize the color palette they’ve been given. The flowers in the vases look as if they’ve been dipped in liquid gold and left to solidify. Forget-me-nots and yarrows.

(“I’m alone?”

“You’re never alone.”)

Gavin is there. Smiling and happy and dressed in a suit made of pure gold, and maybe it should look silly, but it doesn’t. It just looks _right_. He reaches out and takes Connor’s hand, pulling him towards the center of the room, at the base of the stairs. There’s music playing, but before Connor can look for the source, Gavin has pulled him down into a kiss.

It’s a good kiss. The best Connor will ever have in a dream. Nothing will ever compare to it, except maybe the real thing, because Gavin is a good kisser. The best, really.

(“The best?”

“Yes.”

“Who says?”

“I do.”

“You’re—”

“Hey, you’re not supposed to talk during dreams, are you?”

“I’m just—” a beat of silence, a sigh. “You can’t just cut me off like that.”

“I thought you wanted evidence that I’m a good kisser.”

“I thought you were supposed to be the _best_ , not just _good.”_

“Well, I’m trying to give you a dream, I can’t give it everything I’ve got.”

“Okay. Okay. Continue.”)

Gavin is the one to break the kiss, because he knows Connor would never—

(“Come on, Gavin. Be realistic here.”

“Dreams don’t need to be realistic, Con.”

“Gavin.”)

Connor is the one to break the kiss, because he knows Gavin would never. Gavin likes kissing Connor too much. He likes the press of their lips together, he likes the way he has to reach up sometimes because he’s just a little too short and Connor is stupidly tall, and he likes the way Connor’s hands feel on his waist like this.

But there are other things to do, and Connor is aware of that. They have to dance in this room made of gold in their matching suits. So, they do. This stupid human and his beautiful android dance. There is nobody there, nobody watching them. They can spin and twirl and laugh when they mess up their steps, and Gavin can kiss Connor as much as he likes and Connor can do the same.

“Connor,” Gavin says, in the dream and not in real life. They are the first words to ever be spoken in one of these fake worlds. Gavin avoids it, because it gets confusing, because it’s too difficult to keep track of the different characters he sometimes forces into these. “I have to ask you something.”

“Gavin?” he whispers, quiet. Extremely so.

“I know you’ve had a bad day,” he replies. “And I’m sorry. I wish I could help. I know we’ll talk about it tomorrow, right?”

Connor doesn’t reply. He only nods, but the sad look is on his face again. The one that destroys Gavin when he sees it because even if he can get rid of it, even if he can help Connor, it was there. The sadness still existed. It came and it left but it will always come back and no amount of kissing him or coming up with fake dreams is going to help that.

“You had a question for me.”

“Right, I did.” Gavin says and he leans forward and kisses Connor again, like it might be for the last time. “I just don’t…”

“It’s okay.”

“I guess,” he says, and he feels a laugh building in his chest like he gets when he’s nervous, when he’s absolutely terrified. “That I just wanted to ask if you would marry me.”

(“Gavin?”)

Gavin waits, holding onto Connor’s hand tightly. He didn’t kneel like he could have, like people always do in the movies. He didn’t want to, and in reality he couldn’t. He’s laying on a bed and Connor is sprawled over him, weighing him down against the mattress.

And, he has a bad knee. So he really shouldn’t put weight on it.

(“Gavin, what was the answer?”

“What?”

“What did dream-me say?”

“I can’t speak for dream-you. Only you can.”

“Oh. Okay…”

“Okay?”

“What?”

“Is your answer ‘okay’?”

“N-no.”

“Your answer is no?”

“Gavin—”

 

“I can’t tell if you’re really asking me,” Connor whispers, sitting up. “I mean, I would hope…”

“What? You would hope so?”

“I would hope you don’t think this is a good joke for a dream.”

Gavin sits up, too, and kisses his shoulder, reaching forward to grab Connor’s hand, holding onto it tight, like he’s afraid Connor will let go, like he will leave, “I wasn’t joking. I was asking. For real.”

“For real?” Connor lets out a little laugh, a habit he has picked up from Gavin. Nerves building up until they bubble over. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“The answer is yes.”

“Yes?”

“Stop repeating me,” Connor says, and he turns towards him, pushing him back down to the bed. “And just kiss me, okay?”

“Okay.”

So he does, but the two of them can’t stop smiling and it makes it difficult to kiss each other when they’re smiling like fools, but it doesn’t matter because they are tremendously happy. And tomorrow Connor will have to talk about what made him upset tonight, but he will also be able to go into work tomorrow and tell Hank and Tina and the others that _Gavin_ of all people _proposed._

“Wait—” they part and Gavin moves away from him, leaning to take the box from it’s hiding place between the wall and the bed. “You have to wear this.”

Connor takes it from him, opening the box and turning the ring over in his hand before slipping it over his finger.

“I love you,” he says.

“I mean, who wouldn’t?” Gavin replies, and then the smile on his face falls from joking to soft and genuine. “I love you, too.”

Connor kisses him again.

And again and again and again.

And he thinks the only reason this might be a mistake is that neither of them will get any sleep tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> The angel wings in the first dream are based on [same-side's angel au art](https://same-side.tumblr.com/post/179222165429/the-angel-au-nobody-asked-for-puffin-kara) <3
> 
> [my tumblr](https://norchloe.tumblr.com/) | music;  
> White Blood - Oh Wonder  
> Hiding Place - Elenowen


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